From “Darkwater Wings” by Marion Wilholt

Where the Silver Sea meets the Dead River
Both their waters run midnight-dark
Nothing can survive there in the dreamlands
Dreamers awaken, perhaps even into death
Everything else is drowned in those waters
They say someone once tried to swim it
Fortified by the Nameless Ones so it is said
Whether they swam for glory or for escape
Is nowhere recorded; only their grim fate
Their body rebelled against the water
Sprouting great bone-barbed wings
That bore them up and away, limply helpless
Never to be seen again by any dreaming eyes
One wonders if, in the uncharted west
Far beyond the Holzoff Range’s silent cliffs
There is a forsaken city of swimmers
Cursed with twisted wings of horror
For daring to plunge into such tainted waters